Monthly Archives: March 2009

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Indie-pop group Vampire Weekend was all the rage amongst the Brooklyn indie scene two years ago. Their African-influenced rhythmic pop checked Peter Gabriel by name and Paul Simon by sound. Given the disparate influences that came to form the band’s sonic landscape, it didn’t seem too odd when lead singer Ezra Koenig asked “Who gives a [explicative deleted] about an Oxford comma?”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Ezra says the origin from the song is a reaction to a group of students at Columbia University who had rallied in support of a piece of punctuation. In a world where honest travesties happen on a daily basis, the thought of student rallying for a punctuation mark rather than social good can seem myopic or even insulting.

What then, is an oxford comma?

Well, this particular piece of punctuation is used in a list of three or more items which involve a conjunction. For example, the tag line for Fiction Matters – “News, Tips, and Tools for Writers” has an oxford (or more correctly, a serial) comma following “tips” and before the conjunction “and.”

Why the Oxford Comma Matters

The largest reason to use the serial comma is to reduce ambiguity in a list of items. That comma placed before the conjunction places all of the items in the list on an equal representative footing. Leaving that comma out can create an implied pairing between the final two items in a list which would provide unneeded weight. Other arguments for and against the serial comma typically revolve around spoken cadence and redundancy.

As for me, I am pro-Oxford Comma, but I likely wouldn’t take that argument to the streets.

I recently put down a book that I’d been attempting to read since January. The book, which I will not name, started out with a great deal of promise. The story worked along familiar lines, albeit with a unique twist bestowed upon it by the author. While many of the characters seemed too archetypal, even stereotypical, for my taste, the protagonist at least seemed original.

As I slogged through the story, I started to dislike the protagonist. My shift away from that character was for one very specific reason – he was perfect. With the exception of the initial shock which forced the character from childhood into adulthood, he was for all intents and purposes, without flaw. Every challenge that the character faced he was either naturally good at, or he would safely fail at the first go around and then master on his second attempt. The author had built not just one book, but an entire series around what’s known as a Mary Sue character.

The term “Mary Sue character” draws from the early seventies world of Star Trek fan fiction, and from the initial use as a parody has since become associated with a weaker writing. The hallmarks of such a character are easy to recognize – an unusual name, extreme attractiveness, excelling at every task – but the easiest way to determine if a character is a Mary Sue is to ask one question: do I believe that this character can fail?

In the case of the book I was reading, that answer was most certainly “no.” Being able to answer this question at barely halfway through the book, I had no reason to continue reading it. After all, stories are about characters overcoming conflict despite their flaws. As writers, don’t we want our readers to root for that character?

Of course, implied failure and character flaws are just two tenants of crafting characters which readers can cheer for. What are some of your favorite means rounding out your creations? And what will ’cause you to put a book down?

Description: This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain’s to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler’s “Note-books.”The story was published in “Collier’s” last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati:
“Sir–
I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will.” [source: Feedbooks.com]

The “New Think for Old Publishers” panel at this year’s SXSW conference kicked up a digital storm. The majority of complaints from this panel stemmed from what a poorly chosen title and a rather large difference of opinion from the audience. A rather detailed explanation of that can be found here.

Today, Penguin has announced that they are looking to get serious about interacting with literary bloggers. Through their Penguin Blog, the publisher issued an invitation to bloggers to attend a forum schedule for sometime near the end of April. On the plate is the establishing ” clearer ground rules for how we can best work with the blogging community” and ” create direct lines of access to Penguin’s various marketing and publicity groups”.

Unlike the SXSW Panel, Penguin is making sure that attendees know exactly what they’re getting into, stating ” This will not be a conversation about the greater publishing business model ¬that’s another conversation for others in the industry ¬ but a brass tacks discussion tailored to help us better serve you”

From here, at least the talk sounds good. I guess we’ll know more as April approaches.

The publishing industry often likes to look to the music industry for insight into its own future. Personally, this works out just fine for me, as I’ve written quite extensively on the general music industry, and the online, and specifically on the modern, digital music industry.

The marching tune coming out of many publishers of late is that eBooks are no longer a matter of “if,” and instead are now a matter of “when.” One of the major protests against the rise of the eBook is the sheer comfort and physical quality associated with printed books. And for some books, this is certainly true – the hardcover edition of Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One has wonderfully high quality paper which meets in a relatively ragged edge, providing an apt representation of the songwriter himself. However, a glance over my bookshelf reveals not a world of similarly beautiful hardcovers, but rather stacks and stacks of mass market paperbacks.

The lovely thing about mass market paperbacks is that their very name tells you exactly who they are intended for. Paperbacks aren’t collectors editions intended to sit smartly on shelves. They’re intended for reading in laundromats, park benches, on the subway, and at the beach. These are the same locations in which eBooks have a strong chance to flourish.

But what does that mean for the future of those carefully crafted hardcovers? Well, if we think of standard Top 40 Radio, intended for mass consumption, as the musical equivalent of paperback book, then those artfully crafted hardcovers have an interesting, collectable counterpart – the vinyl album.

The Deluxe Discbox Edition

Yes, the antique record, the 12″ LP version of which enjoyed a mere decade as the format of choice, has recently enjoyed a comeback. Music collectors are scooping up vinyl in the greatest quantities since the early 1990s when most of the major labels stopped producing them. In 2007, almost a million albums were sold. In 2008, that number nearly doubled to 1.88 million. Meanwhile, compact disc sales have continued to fall through the floor, with mass market sales of singles picking apart the music industry’s false reliance on full length CDs.

The message is quite clear. For the mass markets, a lower fidelity, highly transportable copy is preferable to a compact disc. The price is lower and the source doesn’t require translation. Meanwhile, those who wish for unparalleled sound quality or artistically-merited collectability are opting for vinyl as or accompanying their purchases. Case in point – the highest selling vinyl album of 2008 was Radiohead’s In Rainbows, an album which was given away in a “name your price” marketing gimmick several months earlier. Despite having access to the album for free, over 25,000 collectors still opted to pay for the vinyl edition.

The music industry is slowly starting to learn how to operate profitably in this type of market. Hopefully, the publishing industry will too.

Yesterday NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about the eBook, their third of the year so far. And the topic of last night’s broadcast was that one near and dear to my heart – eBook DRM (Digital Rights Management). The story took two sides: authors who have found anecdotally that DRM hurts their readers, and publishers who view eBooks without DRM as an invitation to pirate books. Also interviewed for the article was Mike Shatzkin of Idea Logical.

Shatzkin wrote up his take on the interview last week. In his blog post, Mike goes into great detail about the rise of eBooks and the differing formats, and how DRM is one of the last true vestiges preventing eBooks from becoming device interoperable. Most of that, however, was left from the NPR story.

As noted early, I have my own feelings about DRM, most of which stem from my years writing about both music and technology. Historically, every attempt to lock a product via DRM – from the copy protection on VHS to CSS on DVDs to Play4Sure on subscription-based music services, to the various “unbreakable” schemes associated with Blu Ray discs – no protection has really worked. By “worked” I mean that the DRM remained transparent and unobtrusive to legitimate customers while preventing piracy. Illustrated by author Naomi Novik in the NPR piece, DRM typically has the opposite effect. DRM prevents paying customers from using what they’ve purchased as they wish while pirates aren’t affected at all.

Of course, DRM isn’t simply a new take on “locks keeping honest men honest,” the video posted yesterday, and numerous papers and research has shown that providing open and accessible digital materials helps more than it hurts.

Ultimately, however, the decision to use DRM should belong to the author of the works and not the publisher or the store. As far as eBooks go, that’s typically the case.

Today there are more avenues for publishing than any other time a writer has known. A writer today stands in the early throes of what certain romantic idealists, myself included, have termed the “democratization of publishing.” The idea behind the phrase is simple – in a democratized publishing industry, everyone who wishes to publish a book can, and the ultimate deciding factor is given to an agent, an editor, or a publisher. No, that decision rests were it ultimately should – upon the shoulders of the reader.

Photo by Gabriel Robledo

Modern technology technically allows for self-published books to rival those from traditional publishing houses in terms of bindings, cover-design, editing, and type-setting, albeit at a significant cost. The leveling of these playing fields leaves only one variable between self- and selective publishing – the skill of the author. Everything else could be bought. With these barriers significantly lowered, many more writers have become published authors, at least in the quantifiable, tactile sense.

There does remain one major barrier which the world of self-publishing has yet to overcome – and it’s the nagging crux which has perpetuated the the stigma levied against self-publishers. Despite self-publishing being able to emulate the traditional presses across all of the checks listed above, the lack of a clear and concise method of book curation has thrust all self-published books into the shadows cast by the worst amongst their masses.

The reason why some authors choose to rage against the publishing system is the same reason why others are so ready to embrace it. Every step in the process after a book is written is an act of curation – a selection which takes a manuscript from a field of many and bestows or denies a vote of confidence. The agent. The editor. The publisher. The brick-and-mortar bookstore owner. Each of these people represents a conscious decision, a vote of confidence in a book. And almost more importantly, each vote for a book is subconsciously a vote against others. Every step in the process is limited by constraints of time and space and effort. Self-publishing, on the other hand, is limited only by the funds available to the writer.

The harsh truth of the process is readers are quick to judge a traditionally published book on the book’s own merits. That same sense of fairness does not seem to extend towards the self-published. Yes, without a curating element, the stigma of self-publishing leaves those who wish to self-publish guilty until proven innocent.

As the democratization of publishing continues to steam forward, allowing the current generation of writers to realize their dreams, readers are rapidly left clamoring for curators. Readers need people or institutions capable of plucking the books worthy of reading from the masses best left unwashed. For publishing to remain effective, for self-published authors to overcome the avenue’s stigma, for eBooks to gain public acceptance, and for traditional publishers to remain up in down times – an effective culture of curators needs to be developed.

How exactly this is to be, I have no idea. One of the large problems is that readers tend to have their own unique method of curating books. For many, a recommendation by Oprah is all that’s necessary. Others glance at the New York Time’s lists. Following an author. Suggestions from a friend. The Amazon Suggestion Algorithm. Or, if you’re lucky enough, your local independent bookstore employee’s know your reading tastes well enough to make accurate suggestions.

For traditional publishers, the might have to establish their own ability to discern. The publisher’s badge on the spine of a book needs to become a badge in and off itself. Groups of writers can themselves become publishers, leveraging the internet as a connective, communication tool and collaboratively granting stamps of approval towards books. Readers can become voices, reviewing books across the new social internet acting as literary Sherpas for the masses of readers. There are plenty of methods to satisfy the needs that readers will require in a democratized publishing world.

And that need is not democracy, but meritocracy. In this modern age of publishing, readers need help in finding the diamonds amidst the rough. As the tools of the trade are slowly ceded towards the writer, enabling and empowering, the need for curators becomes more and more apparent.

According to Apple Insider, the patent which MONEC Holding has covers “a “light-weight” electronic device with a “touch-screen” LCD-display having the “dimensions such that […] approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size, this display being integrated in a flat, frame-like housing.” ”

If that patent sounds familiar, it’s because it covers just about every eBook reading device mentioned in science fiction or reality for a good while now. The patent in question, 6,335,678, was filed in October 1999 and granted in January 2002.

Another video from the Booknet Canada conference last week. The speaker in this video is O’Reilly’s Vice President of Digital Initiatives. Topics of the talk include the future of eBooks, mobile phones, and a lot of marketing talk.

Most of the data that Andrew uses is related not to fiction, but rather computer books, however the heart of the lesson is interesting nonetheless.

In related news, if more publishing events would put their trade talks online, I think the world would be a much better place. Let’s embrace technology here, people.

Writing a story is not so different from being a juggler. The more elements you introduce into your story, the more items you have looping through the air at any given points. Losing track of any such element will often leave the continuity errors, open up large holes in your plot, or have your work slapped with labels like “sloppy,” “amateur” or “confused.”

Photo by Jake Belder

One of the tried and truest methods of avoiding such calamities is to take advantage of one of writing’s most powerful tools – the outline. As you likely learned in school, the trick to keeping a good outline is to develop a system that works for you. After all, that’s whom the outline is intended for and one size certainly does not fit all.

The Long Outline

As the name suggests, the Long Outline is a step-by-step, scene-by-scene telling of your story that is typically created before the story is written. Points on the outline are essentially summaries of each particular scene. Putting all of the points in order allows for a bare bones understanding of a particular work. This type of outline is both the most labor-intensive and the least flexible. However, this outline provides a significant strength in showing plot holes and showing of pacing. I’ve personally found this type of outline translates exceptionally well for non-linear storytelling, allowing the author to rearrange story details as whole pieces, thus maximizing the dramatic affects.

The Short Outline

Crafted in the spirit of the Dragnet’s Joe Friday, the short outline allows you the writer to scrawl down “just the facts.” Each chapter is summed up in a few short sentence fragments which can be used to provide a general overview of a chapter or to overlook the broader narrative flows of an entire work. From the outline, the author is free to fill in the details as she works.

The “As You Go” Outline

Again, this is a rather simple method which allows a writer to take jump directly into her work and craft a “short outline” as they she writes. While this method doesn’t allow for a great deal of foresight, the growing list serves to show trends that are cropping up while the writer is working and can be helpful when tying everything up at the end.

The effect of your outlining depends completely on the style of outline you use, how well you use it, and what you intend to accomplish with that outlining. I used to be against prewriting altogether, but as I’ve become more professionally invested in writing, I’ve found that the outline is quickly becoming my best friend. For my current novel, I’m creating a short and long outline simultaneously: using the short outline to flesh out the major plot points and the long outline to fill in the details between them. It’s not the fastest method, but I’m hoping that the end result is a story that’s dramatic, sweeping, and with an excellent sense of pacing.